Japanese used bookstores see 5x sales surge as books are being bought by the ton

Commenters debate the surge of bulk book buying in Japan as AI labs scan and sometimes shred used volumes. zirkonit and ghaff say many donated books historically ended up pulped or unsold, so some see scanning as marginally better than waste. RobotToaster, rjh29 and sly010 wish scans were publicly released instead of locked behind corporate walls. mistercheph, Legend2440 and Aurornis argue these buyers are hunting high‑quality, information‑dense, and linguistically diverse texts - including rare or non‑English works - that improve models, while patall and others question how much extra value old or obsolete titles actually add once modern texts dominate training sets.

Opinion splits sharply on ethics and cultural impact. tsylba, panny and palmotea warn of centralized enclosure and the destruction of cultural artifacts, with aprilthird2021 fearing irreversible loss of knowledge; quickthrowman and andrew_lettuce point to legal practices of cutting bindings and shredding originals after scanning. Some, like szszrk and laybak, accept that many books naturally fade from use and favor letting artifacts die, and others suggest individuals or libraries buy and preserve volumes if they care. Concerns about authors' and publishers' rights and the proprietary value of training data (t1234s, IrishTechie) further deepen the divide.